


Castiel’s Marvelous Miracle Show

by whichstiel



Series: Raised you from perdition [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Also there is one bee, Angels, Castiel just wants to make friends, Gen, Possession, Rapture, bee-cause
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:18:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8047432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichstiel/pseuds/whichstiel
Summary: After Jimmy Novak’s ears stopped bleeding, after the tremors subsided, Castiel spoke again and Jimmy heard his words clearly for the first time. “Fear not. I am Castiel, an angel of the Lord. And you have been chosen to serve Heaven.”Jimmy pushed himself slowly to a sitting position and switched off the TV. He peered around the room with narrowed eyes. “An angel,” he repeated, reaching up a hand to wipe a trickle of blood from his cheek. He looked at his bloodied fingers as though he had never seen them before.The TV switched on again. “Yes,” the answer bounced like a thunderstorm around the room. “Of the Lord,” Castiel added.





	Castiel’s Marvelous Miracle Show

After Jimmy Novak’s ears stopped bleeding, after the tremors subsided, Castiel spoke again and Jimmy heard his words clearly for the first time. “Fear not. I am Castiel, an angel of the Lord. And you have been chosen to serve Heaven.”

Jimmy pushed himself slowly to a sitting position and switched off the TV. He peered around the room with narrowed eyes. “An angel,” he repeated, reaching up a hand to wipe a trickle of blood from his cheek. He looked at his bloodied fingers as though he had never seen them before.

The TV switched on again. “Yes,” the answer bounced like a thunderstorm around the room. “Of the Lord,” Castiel added. 

Jimmy shook his head and looked at the ceiling. They always looked upwards, thought Castiel, amused, though technically his celestial being surrounded and penetrated Jimmy on several planes of existence. Jimmy’s face looked pale. “I’ve never seen an angel before.”

In Jimmy’s living room Castiel unfolded himself. Not his entire self but a narrower, much smaller version. Blue light flooded the room as Castiel turned his feline face towards the human prostrate on the floor.

“Huh,” said Jimmy.

“Now you have,” said Castiel.

“Hmmm,” said Jimmy.

Castiel began to feel...something. This, in itself, was disturbing. “That is just one of my faces,” he said, perturbed, switching to his elk visage. 

“Oh. Yeah. Yes. Very impressive,” said Jimmy. “Only…”

“Only what?” the TV fuzzed.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jimmy said. “But I’ve had, ah episodes before. Hallucinations.” He stood shakily and dusted off his perfectly clean trousers. Jimmy pointed his two index fingers at Castiel’s focused projection of his celestial corpus and took a deep, wobbly breath. “You’re just the pot roast dancing in my head and thank you very much but I’m going to ignore this and go to bed.”

“But…” protested Castiel to Jimmy’s retreating back. 

“Ignoring!” said Jimmy, one hand held up in dismissal. Jimmy walked upstairs, the TV glowing behind him, and did not turn back.

“Huh,” Castiel said in one final static burst before the room lapsed into silence.

 

* * *

 

There should be no reason why Castiel, angel of the Lord, should not be able to converse naturally and in his celestial form with the Michael Sword, also known as the Righteous Man, also known as Dean Winchester. Yet his first attempt had gone miserably wrong and Castiel had withdrawn in confusion, leaving Dean shaking and useless on the glass-strewn floor. 

Just a few miles away Castiel located a suitable vessel - strong, pure, and almost guaranteed not to explode. Jimmy Novak would do in a pinch. Except Jimmy didn’t do...anything. He didn’t collapse in a fit of awe or gibber _yes_ or anything that a human vessel was supposed to do when faced with even a drop of Heavenly power. The world was full of passable vessels screaming to the Heavens to be subsumed. Castiel should move on, select _any_ vessel, and fly to Dean Winchester immediately. There were orders to give, after all. 

Yet the next morning he found himself still lingering in Pontiac, Illinois. Sunlight streamed through the window and illuminated Jimmy’s living room. Jimmy sat on the edge of his recliner in front of his quiet TV with his palms loosely folded together and head bowed. He was praying and his prayer was...distracting. 

_Please tell me I’m not crazy. Please tell me I’m not crazy. Please tell me I’m not crazy._

The prayer burrowed beneath Castiel’s feathers and scratched at his skin. He shivered and a vase on an end table toppled over. It had been centuries since any human prayed to him directly. It felt nice, if a bit intense. 

Castiel should move on but instead he found Jimmy’s direct prayer enticing. The TV blipped on as he spread his essence into the room. “You are not crazy, Jimmy Novak.” 

Jimmy’s head jerked up and a slow half smile lit his face. “Yeah?” he whispered. He stood and wiped his hands along his pants. “Prove it.”

Castiel immediately lit the room with his wings, stretching them wide across the walls and over the ceiling. In the center of the vision, his eagle aspect glowed blue and fierce. Thunder rattled the family photos on the wall.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?” The wing display drooped a bit. 

“Well, it’s easy to see things. I mean, I’ve seen things in the past. Things that weren’t real. There’s a bottle of pills in my medicine cabinet that generally takes care of that. I want you to prove to me you’re real. Prove to me you’re an angel.” The request should have seemed insolent but Castiel could feel intense longing flaring like a bonfire from Jimmy’s soul. 

“You are a man of faith, Jimmy. You should not require proof,” Castiel said, not really meaning it. 

Jimmy bowed his head again. “Please. I- I’ve waited all my life for this. Please, Castiel.”

Castiel smiled, his many aspects baring their teeth at the challenge. “Very well.”

Jimmy jumped up from his chair and went into the kitchen. He grabbed an apple from a bowl on the counter and half ran back into the living room where he set it on the coffee table with a flourish. When nothing happened, he flourished a hand over the apple again.

“Sorry, what kind of miracle are you looking for?”

Jimmy smiled his crooked half smile again. “Uh. Loaves and fishes?”

“The miracle of the mount?” Castiel snapped his wings back into the celestial plane. “That’s, ah, a bit beyond an angel’s divine purpose. Ah, a bit beyond my powers.”

“Oh.” 

Jimmy looked disappointed and Castiel found himself listing out his angelic powers. “I can affect life, I can heal. I can fly you throughout the earth. Although I probably should not attempt it while I am otherwise an uncontained celestial force.” At Jimmy’s quizzical look he added, “You would incinerate in transit. Hmm. I can read your thoughts?”

Jimmy shook his head. “I can read my own thoughts. How about…” His gaze lit on a windowsill. “Life, you say?” He walked to the sill and picked up a small bee curled in on itself. Jimmy placed it in the palm of his hand. “Life?”

Castiel brought the bee back to life. Easy.

Jimmy jumped as the bee scrambled to life and his hand twitched in surprise. “Ouch!” He shook his arm and the bee sputtered through the air and away into the room. Jimmy peered at his palm and gingerly picked out a stinger from his palm. “So much for life,” he said, but his grin was wide and unfettered. “Wow,” he whispered as he rubbed a thumb against the sting. “Wow.”

Castiel reached out with his grace and healed Jimmy’s palm. “Healing,” he said nonchalantly. Jimmy’s eyes, if possible, grew even wider. 

“Wow.”

Several hundred miles away Castiel’s true mission, the Righteous Man, drove back towards Castiel. Or, more accurately according to the angelic host, Dean was on his way towards his brother. Castiel decided to wait. There was time. And in the meantime, there were miracles. 

 

* * *

 

Jimmy spent the next few days in a haze of wonder. Castiel knew the bee had been demonstration enough. Jimmy would say yes to Castiel. But possession was not a pretty thing. Containing celestial _anything_ in a human vessel slowly destroyed it. It was too much holy fire, not matter how superior the vessel. It would happen to the Michael Sword just as it would happen to Jimmy. Time was the great factor that eroded everything and everyone, even an angel folded into a human. So Castiel allowed Jimmy this time to revel in miracles. 

On the second day, Castiel was interrupted by a tug on his grace. From a distance he heard the words “I invoke, conjure and command you, appear unto me before this circle.” He barely had a moment to flash a farewell to Jimmy before he felt himself pulled to a small nearby house like a fish on a hook. Dean Winchester sat in that house, a magical lure snagged in Castiel’s very essence. Inside the house a young woman held that lure between her fingers and commanded Castiel to appear. 

“You don’t want that,” he touched the words gently to the line of her spell and sent them trickling down towards the woman. “I will kill you.”

“Castiel?”

If Castiel had been corporeal he would have jumped to hear his name divined so easily. As it was, the room trembled around them and the fire on the table jumped with his nerves. “Please. Stop.”

“No,” she said grimly. “Sorry, Castiel, I don’t scare easily.”

“Please,” whispered Castiel. “Turn away. Don’t do this.”

“Castiel?” asked Dean and the hook of the spell dug more deeply into his grace. 

“Its name,” said the woman. “It's whispering to me. Warning me to turn back.”

Castiel struggled against the spell. This should not be this strong, could not be this strong. Except it was. He felt himself inexorably pulled towards the spellcaster. Desperately, he tried to tie himself up behind dimensions, diminish himself. But it didn’t stop until the woman saw. It didn’t stop until the woman burned.

Castiel stayed away from Jimmy for the rest of the afternoon after that. He knew that Dean Winchester was on the hunt and that he, Castiel, was now somehow on the run. Absurd to think an angel of the Lord could be on the run from any man. And yet, if Dean summoned him again then Castiel might destroy the very vessel he had just sacrificed so much to save. 

Castiel returned to Jimmy. 

Jimmy stood in the kitchen preparing dinner when Castiel spoke. “You’re back!” Jimmy’s smile was beatific.

“Yes.”

“Castiel. I can’t tell you how much this last day has meant to me. To see the glory of Heaven. To know…” He set down the knife and leaned against the counter. “It means everything to me.”

“I know, Jimmy.” He should ask him now. He should ask him for permission now and intervene at last with Dean Winchester. He should. “Another miracle, Jimmy?”

The man’s smile was answer enough. And so, Jimmy had his hand buried in boiling water when his wife Amelia came home. 

“What the hell are you doing,” Amelia cried, and Castiel fled. 

If angels were permitted to curse, the sky above Pontiac would ring with curses. Dean Winchester pursued him in a way that would almost certainly get him killed. Castiel had barely managed to save the life of the oracle. But if the Righteous Man called him before Castiel found a vessel, _Dean_ would burn. He should possess Jimmy and be done with it. 

And yet…

Castiel liked Jimmy. He liked his wonder, his faith. How could he destroy that? 

So Castiel tried to talk to Dean again. “Dean,” he tried. The hotel room trembled around them. “Dean. I need you to hear me. I need you to understand. You have a mission, Dean.” The words shattered the ceiling and ended the same as before, with Dean curled on the floor. 

Castiel peered around and then very, very softly said, “Damn.” A lightbulb popped.

He shouldn’t have taken his time. He shouldn’t have gotten to know Jimmy. There was no time to find another vessel. Dean Winchester, according to Heaven, acted fast. 

From across town, he heard Jimmy’s prayer, “I'm about to lose my family here if you don't tell me how... Please, Castiel, just talk to me. What do you want from me?”

Castiel moaned and lights flickered, then he flew to Jimmy. “I need to possess you,” he said simply. Something deep within him ached. “So that I may fulfill Heaven’s plan.”

“Yes, I understand.” Ecstasy and fear emanated from Jimmy. “Promise my family will be okay and I'll do it.”

“Heaven will look after them,” promised Castiel.

”Then, yes.”

And it was done.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you rewatch an episode and you get a little obsessed with a minor detail. Like how later angel possessions happen in a flash but Castiel friggin' wooed Jimmy with miracles. 
> 
> I know this was probably changed for narrative expediency in later episodes. 
> 
> But still. Oh, Cas.


End file.
